A Stockholder’s Debt

Poetry

Ella Joy

 
I'd say that I'm listening to this hermit voice,  
but all I can focus on is the trial this paper has brought me. 
An inequity in this great textbook – ah, what a life. 
I’ll remind myself as my eyes shut again and again; this long battle  
in this lucky world of mine. 
The luck I hold in my tire to be able to sit under these rays of fluorescence  
quizzing myself on 3 chapters I've missed.  
I will stay on this blue plastic throne  
and taste the gamble of my debt.  
I look for the arrow, scan for anyone with the answer.  
I’ll act like a stockholder on paper – 
stand tall and pretend. 
The arrogance of a boy with the truth of a rich man  
as I hold this wad of cash and become the problem. 
Now I’ve looked up and a cloud of peach-mango vape wafts towards me 
from the not-so discrete stranger next to me 
and I try without resolve to find meaning in that. 
I lie to myself and into the prof’s eyes that I know or care about what is going on –  
and I am sorry about that, truly. 
Sometimes I think I would benefit from meditation 
and then I sit in business class and realize that I’m right.